Magi: The Kingdom of Magic Episode 11: The Great Rift

Abhmad could have gone to many places after he was forced to leave the throne… I didn’t think he’d decide on the Dark Continent. Nor did I think his personality would have changed that drastically! He was very much a piggish, selfish bastard back in Balbadd, while the current Abhmad seems to have mellowed out (and has definitely matured). He’s a hell of a lot more humble too – I never thought I’d see him do manual labour (from carrying stuff to rowing boats) or eat live grubs, especially as he used to act like he was God incarnate. It’s an odd feeling watching both him and Sahbmad live out a humble life amongst native islanders, and it’s even weirder watching Morgiana interact with them – they should only really know her as “that Fanalis girl who beat all our monkeys in the courtyard”. It was Alibaba who met up with them in the manga, back during the Zagan arc (which, if you remember, was involved in the wreck that was the second half of Season 1). I’m not sure how I feel about this change.

I’ve been wondering how they’d choose to animate Morgiana’s descent into the Great Rift – the manga’s depiction had several pages of black nothingness, which I found really effective. It’s amazing how that thing’s supposed to be a crack… as in, there should be a bottom to the valley and an opposite side to it, yet you can’t even begin to see it from one end. It’s so deep that sunlight can’t even get through to the bottom even though nothing’s blocking it… even though Morgiana had a household vessel to help her (actually, she would have been a goner without it) it must have been terrifying to just drop down into something which is pitch black – something which you don’t know the depth of, nor what’s at the bottom.

Though it’s all well and good that Yunan, another Magi, was at the bottom waiting for her :D God knows what he’s doing down there. Unlike Judal, he doesn’t seem to be inherently evil – but he’s too mysterious to make any sort of assessment of where his allegiances might lie. He’s probably a hell of a lot more powerful than Judal, and is certainly more experienced and knowledgeable – even without leaving the valley he can “hear” what’s going on at either end, presumably with the Rukh’s help. While he’s seemingly leaving the choice (of whether to proceed) to Morgiana, he’s implying that the other side’s radically different – something’s fundamentally different there to the point that he wouldn’t want to take her back if she crossed the rift. “It’s like the world ends right here”, says Morgiana – perhaps there’s more literal truth to that than she thought. She’ll have to make a choice, while hardly knowing anything about whether she’d be better or worse off over there.

Yunan also alluded to the war we caught a glimpse of in the pilot episode – a war that seems to have its roots in Kouha’s invasion declaration to Chancellor Mogamett of Magnostadt. I wonder how their expansionist policies will be affected by the current Kou emperor’s death – I wouldn’t put it past Gyokuen to have somehow orchestrated that, especially in light of how much of a bitch she really is. It seems like all the Kou siblings have turned up to discuss it, and Hakuryuu looks more evil than ever. I remember saying that the hate was strong within him… well, it’s even stronger now.

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Having Morgiana interact with Alibaba’s brothers was indeed super weird, but it didn’t mess anything up and more Mor screentime is always a good thing. It seems that they’re putting in some padding so the halfway point of this season lines up with a certain point in the manga, which I do think is a good move on A-1’s part. If they needed to add filler I would have rather had some expansion on the Toran (Tran? I want to be happy with Viz’s translation, but I hear Tran and I just think Tron lol) culture. I was sorely disappointed that they didn’t go the extra mile by creating a spoken version of their language in the anime, especially since it’s…kind of a major plot point. Sadly it doesn’t look like they’ll be adding it in this season either, but oh well. I was pretty happy with how they handled Mor’s decent into the rift, and Yunan sounds exactly how I thought he would lol

I’m pretty excited to see Kouen and his family together next episode, since it’s the first time the viewers get to have a real look at who really he is. But I’m not looking forward to seeing more Hakuryuu. Or am I? Plot-wise he has exciting potential no matter what direction he takes, but his growing creep factor makes my stomach twist >.<